A new Belgrade chapter will be opened. Please check the site from time to time to see where we are with the progress.

Zvonko wrote: I am researching Banjeglav family from former Yugoslavia,Croatia, mainly from Lika, village called Bunic.

BANJEGLAV would appear to be derived from banja =spa and glav = head.

Robert wrote: 17 BANJEGLAV arrived in the US via Ellis Island, all but a few from Bunic. Over 500 came via Ellis Is from Bunic, 1892-1924

http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB/ellis.html

Zvonko wrote: I also want to know original last name of my family(Banjeglav), because in Lika Serb families change their last names because they were afraid of Croatians.

Robert wrote: That scenario that you gave for the name change may be fact or it may not. If they were among the Serb and Vlaci settlers who arrived as refugees in 1690, during Die Militargranze times they would have been recruited as defenders of the Austrian Empire. That status included special privileges such as taxes and land. And historically your name change scenario would not concur with that history.

However... there is another very historic practice and that is the use of clan or house names. This often occured when a surname became too common in a village and families became confused with one another. Thus when someone came looking for, lets say Ivan Kovacavic there may have been several by that name. The visitor to the village would then try to describe his Ivan.. and a villager may say "ah you mean Ivan the miller, thus that family may take on the clan or house name MLINAR, which would then be hyphenated Kovacevic-Mlinar. Another lesser common name changed occured when a family had no male heirs and if the groom to the first born female in that family agreed to take her family name, then they would inherit any property. In earlier times only the eldest male inherited property.

That said any records would be available in the Republic of Croatia or, if the LDS Church (Mormon) church has microfilms from Bunic those would be available for rent (@ $3.50 US) at a local Family History Center near you. There are over 2,000 FHCs around the world. Here is what the FHC holds only 2 years of records for for the Orthodox Church at Bunic:

Title Matična knjiga, 1857-1858
Authors Pravoslavna crkva. Е½upa Bunić

Note Location Film
Roč‘eni, vjenčani, umrli 1857-1858 FHL INTL Film
1536628 Item 7

The FHC is mistaken as they state the records are in Roman script, of course they will be in Cyrillic.

The time that the LDS microfilms cover, that part of Croatia would still have been under military rule and not civil rule. It was in 1870 that part was returned to Croatian civil rule.

http://www.familysearch.org/Eng/Library/FHLC/frameset_fhlc.asp

Links that may be of interest:

Recent photos of the village of Bunic (2001 population 136)

http://photos.reinvented.net/bunic

Perhaps you know the individual listed in the online Croatia phone book:

BANJEGLAV MILAN Bunic, Bunic 74 (+385)53 8909 915

In addition the National Archives in Zagreb holds many records. In the past several years additional microfiliming of old church records has been done and the National Archives now holds approximately 3 times more records than are available from the LDS FHC.

http://www.arhiv.hr/

Best Regards,
Robert Jerin
Croatian Heritage Museum
Cleveland Ohio
[email protected]